10th Anniversary of the Flying Scouts Aerial Dugong Survey.

It hardly seems possible that ten years have passed already since that fateful day Tony Smallwood the chief instructor of my flying school challenged me to “go and do something useful” with my freshly minted PPL.
Since then the Flying Scouts have continually surveyed the Dugong population in Krabi and Trang Provinces in Southern Thailand – probably the world’s longest running continuous Dugong survey of its kind.
We now have a dedicated team of three aircraft, one of which is a Gyrocopter to cover a large area of coast line.

As with previous yearswe were generously supported by K. Suchard and his team at Phuket Airpart, as well as K. Yve at San Kampheng Airport. ATC provided by AeroThai also deserve a mention, especially the controllers from Hat Yai who operate Tran Airport Tower. They have become avid fans of our project, and have provided us with great service.

Due to an exceptionally prolonged rainy season this year, it was only possible to begin the Krabi in late early March, and then late March in Trang Province. This worked out well for Krabi, where we had relatively calm winds and good visibility, but not so for Trang, which unusually developed regular afternoon thunderstorms severely hampering our schedule.

A lot of planning and discussion were

The PMBC team were once again superb to work with. From left to right. K Kung, K. Max & K. Oi.

The top graph of the data below shows the number of deaths which is averaging around 7 animals per year. A very large percentage of the overall population. Main causes are drowing by being trapped in fishing nets, or being struck by boats.

The secound figure is the population count. This years count was up on 2016 with 169 animals estimated in total compared to 160 last year, and the trend seems to be improving after an intial decline that seems to have been reversed since four years ago.

Apart from the ongoing conservation activities of the Marine Coastal Resources Department, and its Phuket Marine Biology Center, (PMBC), one of the main reasons for this improvement in population has been the support of local government officials especially in Trang to enforce the no fish zone around the Dugong’s protected habitat. This year we were invited to meet with Trang Governor Mr Siriphat Phatthakun, who has taken a special interest in marine animal conservation and is a keen diver.